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Government looks to increase French aliyah

March 19, 2014

The Ministry of Immigrant Absorption on Tuesday evening presented the Knesset with its plan to increase immigration from France. The year 2013 saw 3,348 French olim migrate to Israel, a sixty three percent increase from the previous year. Many ascribe the migration to Europe’s economic problems and the rising specter of anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish violence in the country.

The new government effort will involve increasing the budget for activities and programs aimed at promoting immigration run by the Jewish Agency, the World Zionist Organization and the Keren Haysod-United Israel Appeal, a spokesman for the agency told the Post.

Last December, the ministry and Jewish Agency announced that they were planning several new programs in France for this year, including the creation of a joint task force to reach out to Israelis living abroad and strengthen their connections to Israel.”

The ministry this week expanded on its earlier announcements, adding that it would seek to reach out to the 300,000 French Jews who have a “cultural affinity [but] are not connected to the community and tend to assimilate.”

According to the ministry’s figures, there are some 700,000 people eligible to come to Israel under the law of return.

French Jews are close to Israel, with nearly sixty percent having first degree relatives in the Jewish state and the ministry asserted in its presentation that fully thirty six percent of them are considering aliyah. A third of French Jews intend to remain in country, the ministry added.

High youth unemployment and the general desire among young Frenchmen to emigrate can be leveraged to increase aliyah, according to the ministry.

Recent findings by the European Union’s Fundamental Rights Agency indicated that a third of Jews from several western European countries were considering emigration due to anti-semitism but it is not clear that Israel is the only destination that they are considering.

Avi Zana, who heads the Ami, a French-Israeli NGO which promotes aliyah, told the Post that he believed that the new government push was “very important” but that he did not think that it was enough.

Citing an annual budget increase of between four and five million Dollars for the new programs, he said that the “plan is big but the budget is low” and that additional funds are needed.

The ministry disagreed, with the ministry spokesman shooting back that new funds would enable the organizations taking part to significantly ramp up their activities.

“You need to remember that these are things that we did not have before so when they say that is a low budget, I think it’s a [relatively] big budget,” he said.

Ariel Kandel, the head of The Jewish Agency’s delegation to France, agreed, telling the Post that the budget increase will allow his organization to double the number of French speakers employed in its Israeli call center and to increase the number of emissaries present in France.

Delays in seeing agency representatives due to manpower shortages have been a persistent issue for many French Jews interested in making aliyah, the Ami organization asserts.

According to Kandel, five more French speakers will be hired to work in the 24 hour call center and between five and seven new agency employees will be added to the twenty five already active in France.

The new government push will also allow the Jewish Agency to hold aliyah information sessions up to four times a week, rather than the one weekly gathering currently held. Fairs highlighting immigration opportunities and promoting participation in Israel experience programs such as Masa will be held much more often as well.

The Jewish Agency intends to use the new resources allocated to it to help prepare new immigrants for the Israeli job market, Kandel added.

Speaking with the Post, Immigrant absorption minister Sofa Landver said that her Ministry is also looking for ways to ease the transition for medical practitioners and other professionals looking to transfer their degrees and accreditations, which is currently a long and difficult process.

Landver expressed her hope that the new plan would allow Israel to reach out to people less affiliated with the Jewish community and to “strengthen their Jewish” identity. This emphasis on identity has been described by both the Jewish Agency and the Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs Ministry as one of Israel’s major challenges in its relations with the diaspora and has lead to a government commitment to more than double its investment in overseas Jewish identity programming to a billion shekels a year in the form of the Prime Minister’s World Jewry Joint Initiative.

Responding to the ministry agenda, Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky told the Post that it is “an excellent example of how, at this critical point in time, The Jewish Agency and the Government of Israel represented by the Minister of Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption are working in full cooperation to maximize our resources and ensure that Aliyah from France is as robust and successful as possible.”

“We will continue to ensure that our activities are coordinated with government efforts to guarantee the recognition of academic credentials, develop new absorption programs, and take all other steps necessary for French olim’s successful integration into Israeli society,” Sharansky said.